Effect of tillage on physico-chemical indices of soil in maize based cropping sequence of southern Rajasthan

Abstract

Conservation agriculture based field experiment was carried out at Rajasthan College of Agriculture, MPUAT, Udaipur to evaluate effect of different type of soil manipulation practices on physico- chemical properties of soil in a clay loam soil during 2014-15 and 2015-16. Results revealed that conventional tillage (CT) significantly increased the porosity (45.67 and 44.61%) and water holding capacity (44.27 and 43.61 %) of soil over rest of tillage practices. Bulk density of soil increased in zero tillage (1.41 Mg m-3) due to minimum soil disturbance and decreased in CT (1.37 Mg m-3) due to increase in tillage intensity. Zero tillage also increased available nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulphur content in soil during both the years after harvest of cropping sequence maize-wheat-green gram as compared to permanent bed and conventional tillage.